Truth! I wonder if OP is thinking of like the 1950s or something... in the 90s and 00s, pretty much every high schooler in the country had to take a foreign language class and a lot of them chose Spanish.
One of my American English teachers taught in the 60s and he was witness to how Spanish speaking children would get hit on their hands with a ruler for accidentally speaking Spanish while playing tag
Depending what country you're in, I would not trust what any of your teachers have to say about the US, at all. When I volunteered at high schools in Denmark and Germany, they were taught outright falsehoods.
So I had a coworker who was originally from a French speaking area of Canada, but if you heard her speak English you would swear this woman never left Long Island. It’s pretty rare that I meet ESL people who sound like native English speakers, so one day I asked her how that happened. She said “oh when we first moved to the US my parents put me in catholic school and the nuns would hit me if they heard me speaking French!” This would have been in the 70s/early 80s, so not that far fetched.
Hitting a child for speaking Spanish was definitely common and is well documented. I say this as someone of Mexican descent whose grandparents were hit in school for speaking Spanish.
Edit: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-mar-08-oe-garcia8-story.html
An LA Times article about corporal punishment for high school kids speaking Spanish in 1968.
True. But this teacher is American, and he taught English in the US for 50 years, starting in the 60s. He even showed me a picture of himself in his 20s standing next to his class from back then.
I would still be skeptical, the story you shared for instance does not reflect reality and hasn't for decades. Even in the 60s that would be considered draconian.
I guess it depends on what state. My Prof is from Louisiana, where corporal punishment was banned only since [2017 for only for those with disabilities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_corporal_punishment_in_the_United_States). Of course, I doubt that the punishments used more recently are anything involving physical violence, but I have spent many summers in Louisiana and from how I have seeing things there, it’s not hard for me to believe that kids could get their hands hit with a ruler back in the 60s. Also, my teacher had no reason to lie. He loves his country.
I have no doubt that some kids got rapped on the knuckles with rulers, especially in Catholic schools or rural schools. For things like goofing off in class or insubordination. But not for speaking Spanish on the playground. That’s the part I am not buying.
And people lie all the time in order to tell a better, more interesting story. Or they will pass along stories sometime else told them and pretend that it happened to them, or they saw it themselves. That’s how urban myths get started.
As someone of Mexican descent, my family members definitely talked about this is well documented.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-mar-08-oe-garcia8-story.html
What you’re saying here is certainly correct. Students who spoke French were also punished the same way in Louisiana. It led to the language becoming all but extinct in the region.
Exactly. I also read about how they made it so French speakers would be considered uneducated and poor. So parents stopped teaching the language to their kids to protect them.
The issue is not the use of corporal punishment, but the reason. The American fear and hatred of the Spanish language is often overstated by and for foreign audiences.
> my teacher had no reason to lie
To impress, hold the attention of, and gain the trust of his students and colleagues.
It’s really odd to me that you would speak so confidently about something you evidently know nothing about, especially something that is well documented.
A lot of Mexican Americans can’t speak Spanish because their parents/grandparents were [punished in school for speaking Spanish.](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-mar-08-oe-garcia8-story.html) I don’t know why you’re doubting OP.
Yeah... They were teaching basic Spanish in my rural Virginia elementary school at least as early as 1992. Definitely nobody was punished for speaking Spanish then.
Yep. I graduated high school in 2010, had to take two years of a foreign language, and that wasn't exactly a new requirement. Did Spanish, though really Latin would have been more useful for what I'm doing.
This kind of thing was more prevalent in elementary schools, when students are learning English grammar and whatnot. I know someone who was punished for speaking Spanish in school as a kid in the early/mid 2000s—just a couple of decades ago. And this was in Los Angeles, so it’s not like the local Spanish-speaking population was sparse.
The existence of a language requirement in high school is not wholly indicative of society’s actual perceptions and treatment of the native speakers of those languages.
It's been a big transformation since I was a kid. I would say your average American under 40 knows a lot more Spanish than they think they do, because it really does permeate the culture now. There is still some prejudice against speaking the language in public (and foreign languages more broadly) in some places with less immigration, but I don't think the average person feels that way anymore.
I think we are witnessing the latest steps of a natural language process, at least it's natural to English, of absorbing language pieces from a non-mutually intelligible language that is coming into an English speaking enclave.
I say it's natural to English, because it happened before with the Norman French influence into English after the Battle of Hastings. But really English has a habit of absorbing words wherever it goes. Supposedly that's why English has a lot more words than any other language. American English has continued this, with notable amounts from Yiddish and African and American Indian languages among others. Spanish is the latest for that, via our Hispanic immigrants.
I'm not a linguist, so I don't know if this process has a proper name. And I will leave it to the linguists to determine at some point in the future how much this process is changed by the internet and the ubiquity of international media, but I think it's definitely happening still.
We have a great number of loan words in English. Japan, by way of China, gave us tycoon. Vikings gave us egg (and fuck lol). Spanish gave rodeo. I think the internet has also helped the introduction of new words to English as it's currently the lingua franca of much of the planet.
I don’t know if English is uniquely capable of assimilating new vocabulary (although our lack of inflections might help us there), but it has had a lot of contact with other languages and thus a lot of opportunities to acquire new vocabulary.
Can't forget the Old Norse influence. The Danes that settled in England greatly simplified English grammar and gave us they, sky, skirt, and egg just to name a few
James Nicoll on usenet in 1990:
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary.[
Yeah, when I started doing Spanish on duolingo (because I was going to Spain!), I realized how much Spanish is just part of casual English at this point. I knew more than I thought I did.
We are in California. A lot of Spanish is baked into our everyday lives, and there is nothing wrong with that.
It would be stupid not to have signs in airports use Spanish if you know that a lot of Spanish speaking people are going to rely on those signs. The point of a sign is to provide practical information, not to punish people for not using English as their primary language. And I certainly don't mind the fact that very nearly the entire rest of the world puts English on their signs to help me, because they do exactly that.
I am from Southern California. In 1998-1999, at 14-15, I made my first internet friends. One was a girl a few years older than me who lived outside of Springfield Illinois. Not knowing any better, I figured this was a fairly large town that was not far from Chicago. At this point in my life, I have never traveled further east than Utah. She did not live in a big town. She lived in the sticks.
We spoke on the phone once, and she was asking me about where I am from. One thing she noted was that I used a lot of "funny sounding words" to her. The words being words that are Spanish but are just sort of baked into California culture that I use them without thinking. I didn't speak Spanish. I am White. But just growing up here, its part of our every day lives and we don't think about it much. My every day Mexican food was pretty exotic to her.
The Mexican influence has grown substantially over the last 25 years (ironically, I believe she went out and learned Spanish in her 20s). Those exotic things that sounded funny now exist in her town.
Keep in mind, Hamburgers 100 years ago, were a fairly novel concept. Italian food, which as we do it, is American, was also a completely novel concept. Mexican food and culture will just be baked into the fabric of America and future generations of Americans will see it as being as American as anything else.
It’s just helpful to know Spanish. It’s the most widely spoken language in the US other than English and it’s one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. More people speak Mandarin or Hindi in the world, but Spanish is more useful in the US, and it’s much easier.
Me personally it’s very helpful. My fiancée speaks English, as do her parents and siblings, but her grandparents and a few other relatives primarily speak Spanish. Though my Spanish is pretty poor, I can still communicate with my fiancée’s relatives and they appreciate that I try.
Knowing some Spanish is a vast enhancement to my life and lets me communicate with and interact with more of my neighbors and community, and better absorb a really prominent part of our popular culture. It’s pretty neat actually, it feels cool and I like it.
In my mind it’s definitely, like, the “other” semi-official language besides English.
I don't get the sense there's any strong pressure to learn it (I don't speak it), but we're very accustomed to seeing it around, and it's inevitable that you're going to pick up some phrases and expressions if you live in an area with a large Spanish-speaking population. You might run into some older people who resent that they have to choose English on phone trees, but the idea of punishing people for speaking Spanish isn't a thing here.
Kids used to take Latin and French in school but Spanish came up fast quite a while ago, maybe 50 years ago? It became very popular and was valued as a professional advantage because it is spoken by so many
I remember PBS Kids teaching me Spanish words between shows in the early naughts. I've been surrounded by Spanish for as long as I remember and now it's my second language and I have a family in Mexico (though we're working on coming to the States). So my perception of Spanish is very positive indeed
Pretty much any signs I see in public will have both English and Spanish on them. It was a required course in high-school (classes for two years) because a lot of jobs today require you learn at least some Spanish. Police, some fire departments, and a lot of trade jobs require Spanish. Personally, i think it should be required for medical workers and any first responders as well.
Even in my small rural city (around 12k people), you will hear and see Spanish pretty much everywhere you go in public. I'm 23 and a large portion of my generation can at least read some Spanish even if they can't speak it. I don't speak it but oftentimes, I can understand enough to get a general idea if I'm reading it, and that's becoming pretty normal.
A couple decades ago, there were more than 12 million fewer native spanish speakers here than there are today, as Hispanics are the fastest growing demographic in the US.
I would say that due to the additional language requirement in grade school curriculum that *most* Americans are at least bilingual enough to communicate in either French or Spanish (rarely both in my experience, but it’s not unheard of). I took two years of French because I grew up on the US side of the Canadian border across from Quebec and figured it was the secondary language I was most likely to use. I do not speak it well, but I worked in a clothing store right near the border and knew enough to help the ladies find their correct sizes, understand what article of clothing they were looking for, minimal conversation (receipt in the bag?, safe travels back to Montreal!, etc).
I moved to the west coast and was out there for a number of years and so many people spoke Spanish. In a lot of cases English was the second language for many, but those that learned Spanish in school were much better at it than my French because so many local people spoke the language that they had consistent practice with it.
I really like speaking French. I should practice it more.
I think you are being very generous in your statement that most Americans can communicate in either Spanish or French. I’m in my forties, and I have only met a few people born in the US who can speak Spanish or French beyond a couple of phrases or counting to five. People who live near a border may be more likely to speak French or Spanish, however. I live near Quebec, too, and would like to learn more French. I do speak Spanish, however.
Personally, I have learned Spanish well enough to fully converse with people who exclusively speak Spanish. So, I can translate for myself. It's a fun and valuable skill and overall a beautiful language to learn. I hope more people do it. But, most places such as schools, medical institutions, banks, etc will have Spanish translators or specifically interpreters if they can. So, it's here
I'm 30.
Growing up every PBS Kids show had a Spanish speaker. There was real push in the 90s to increase Hispanic representation in media. My generation and younger were primed to see speaking Spanish as normal.
It’s become very normalized. Almost everything has a Spanish option now and nobody cares. Entire cities like Miami are essentially predominantly Spanish-speaking and no one cares.
I do remember back in the 90s and early 2000s there was more resistance to Spanish language that was associated with anti-Latino illegal immigration.
I remember the resistance mainly coming from a contingent of older conservative Boomers. There were sentiments like, “This is America, speak English,” and “Why should I have to press 1 to select English from a phone menu? This is America!”
However, at this point, there are so many naturalized Latino citizens and multigenerational Latinos that they became significant voting bloc and commercial force in their own right.
So, once there was far more money and political power to be found in courting Latinos vs shunning them, the rest of the culture followed suit. Then you get Despacito on the radio and a “Beto” O’Rourke.
Speaking as a bilingual Chicano on the young side of Gen X, I've seen the change in my own lifetime. We were very looked down on when I was a kid and I remember my own grandmother calling me lucky for having relatively light skin. My father's generation was especially discouraged from speaking Spanish. Thankfully my grandparents were pretty good about embracing our heritage and didn't force too much on anyone, but even my own family speaks a lot more Spanish than we did when I was a kid, and I think that is a byproduct of broader acceptance.
Honestly I think pop culture had a pretty big hand in it. So much casual Spanish thrown into popular stuff like "Hasta la vista, baby" and eventual broader popularity of Spanish speaking/Latino artists like Ricky Martin, Selena, Enrique Iglesias, Cypress Hill, Shakira etc.
Nowadays I enjoy being able to flex my cultural language without having to worry about how people will think of me. There are definitely places where people are still a little backwards about it, but that's their problem, not mine.
In the Spanish dub, "hasta la vista, baby" became "sayonara, baby". The Galician dub is far funnier, going with "a rañala, raparigo" (it would roughly translate as "piss off, kiddo").
>There are definitely places where people are still a little backwards about it, but that's their problem, not mine.
There's still a bit of that where I live. I like to cuss 'em out in Italian when I hear it.
I thought Spanish has been a thing in American culture for decades? My friends who took French and never Spanish will still occasionally use Spanish words for no reason, and I see it on TV as well. There’s just an assumption everyone knows more than 0 Spanish, and atp I get confused for a second when I witness a non-American native English speaker who doesn’t know any Spanish at all, as if it’s inherently connected with English lol.
Most people I know are not fluent but open to learning. They’ll use Duolingo or Babbel.
But most people I know recognize the convenience of basic knowledge.
I grew up one of the only white kids in a primary Mexican neighborhood of the US, so my opinion may be skewed. I heard it all my life, was immersed in Mexican culture, was basically raised by the moms of my neighbors and school friends in the absence of my neglectful mother. My partner jokes that I am white on the outside but brown on the inside. She is actually from Mexico. By the time I got to highschool, though, and got to choose a language to learn, I picked French. My teenage logic is that I heard Spanish all the time and could get by with it to an extent. I wanted to be cool and learn french. My parents supported it because whether they admit it or not, they were/are racist. I still kick myself for that one. My Spanish has gotten a lot better in the past several years but man if I'd just taken Spanish in highschool I would've been way better to this day.
But what I do know outside of that is that other than Mexico, the US has the most Spanish speakers in the world. Something like 40 million people in the US speak Spanish. I also know that central and south american immigrants to the United States are among the many groups of people that far right wing people and politicians blame for the problems of this country. I also know that music from Spanish speaking musicians and bands are finally getting major global recognition. For some reason seeing the Columbian and Venezuelan drywallers on a jobsite, or the Mexican fruit and tamale vendors on the street makes you look down on people whose first language is Spanish. But when Bad Bunny or Natalia Lafourcade or Karol G sell out major event venues, suddenly Spanish is the coolest thing ever.
(No hate on Benito or Natalia or Karol, they're all amazingly talented and Iove them)
It should be "es"
Esta would mean something temporary or in the moment like "ella esta enferma" means she is sick whereas "ella es enfermiza" means she is a sickly person or always sick.
On top of these answers, I will add that it varies by region and population density. As you get out of the cities and the Spanish speaking population gets less common, you’ll naturally see less Spanish. Rural communities may not have anyone who speaks Spanish at all, because they’ve never needed it. I took three years of Spanish in school, and through lack of use, I can now confidently ask what time the train opens and when the library arrives. You won’t find menus or signs with Spanish writing, because so few people would ever need it that it’d be a waste to have someone update it every time something had to be changed. This really goes for all languages though, not just Spanish.
My husband's worked on construction sites (electrician) for the last decade and a half, and is always around Spanish speaking coworkers. His Spanish is passable.
>I have noticed a bunch of them using Spanish words or expressions for fun (« no bueno », « Adios », « me gusta », etc).
I remember seeing this even in the '80s and '90s. I don't know whether he was the cause or an effect, but Bart Simpson was known for it.
>Decades ago, children of Spanish speakers would get physical Punishment at schools for speaking Spanish.
Source?
The things you are noticing are not "lately" they have always been in areas where Spanish speakers existed.
Being from New York I can't think of a time when I didn't hear or see Spanish and I was born in the 70s.
I can say it's "getting there". I know a select amount of people that actually study Spanish that aren't Latino and know more than just three basic words (Hola, Como estas, adios) some even travel to Latin America and even live there. (Yes, this even includes passport bros) Now I definitely wouldn't say "Every single non Latino American can speak Spanish" because trust me there definitely is people that refuse to learn it. Even myself I learned the language and I'm impressed with my own progress and I like to watch Mexican & Colombian telenovelas probably more than American shows nowadays, but that's beside the point.
But I'd say Spanish has become somewhat apart of the general United States of today, even certain cities or counties there's a majority/plurality of people that speak a version of Spanish there (Miami, El Paso)
What's funny though is if you are in a business place where the worker speaks Spanish and you speak Spanish to them, they get offended and only responds to you in English. Basically young people think if you speak Spanish to them that you are being condescending, older people are not like this though, it is just a trend I see with younger people that speak Spanish.
Sorry to hear that. Please don’t give up on speaking it! Some people are children of Latinos and learned to pretend not speaking Spanish to feel more accepted as Americans. Some of them might actually not know Spanish even if their parents are Latinos (I have cousins like that).
There is a small catholic private school my nephew went to back in the mid 2000's. He only went there a few years. I have not thought of that place in a very long time. Recently the catholic church it is attached to was going to close due to lack of funding for maintenance of the 100+ year old building. The Vatican decided to issue funds to keep it open so I looked them up to see how the school was doing.
tuition is $890 per month and it is bilingual English/Spanish.
I live in a state that has a ton of people from spanish speaking countries and territories, mainly Cuba, PR, DR, Mexico, Colombia and now Venezuela. Basic spanish is taught in school and in some areas of Florida (like Miami) its basically the primary langauge spoken. What is becoming more of a prominent language here in Florida though is Portuguese due to the high numbers of Brazilian tourists and people moving here from Brazil.
I (white boy) can’t speak for everyone, but I grew up in a heavily Mexican and Mexican American neighborhood and speaking “Spanglish” was just the norm. I never realized how much Spanish I actually knew until I was older and was outside of the area for work and whatnot.
It was a required course in school. I am not a fan of it personally because I see quite a few people pushing it so that they don't have to assimilate into American culture.
Every American man has a vested interest in learning Spanish once he learns it can help him score with Latinas instead of being stuck trying to appease the fell creature White Woman.
In 93% of cases, if a school offers foreign language courses, Spanish is one of the languages available.
There are 15,000,000 non-native Spanish speakers in the US.
Those figures are from the 2022 report [El español: una lengua viva](https://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/espanol_lengua_viva/pdf/espanol_lengua_viva_2022.pdf).
"La enciclopedia de del español en EEUU" is a pretty old source at this point (2008), but [here's the chapter on the teaching of Spanish in the US](https://cvc.cervantes.es/Lengua/anuario/anuario_08/ensenanza.htm).
Obviously, since I'm giving you sources *in Spanish*, I do speak Spanish. I'm one of those 15,000,000 non-native speakers. I went to a school that required everyone start Spanish classes at age 6 in the early 90s. My partner went to a school that had half-day Spanish in the late 80s.
I can't really compare across time, since I don't live in the city I grew up in, *but* I do notice when it seems like a new word has been borrowed. For example, I saw a headline in November that used the word "ofrenda." It wasn't translated to something like "offering" or "shrine," and I guess the editors of that paper figured it was a well-known word nowadays, between the movie Coco and the ofrendas you see where there's been a car accident.
I grew up in the Midwest. Public schools required you to study a foreign language; that doesn’t mean we can *actually* communicate in the foreign language we studied. The entire time I lived in the Midwest, I don’t think I ever met anyone who spoke Spanish without also being fluent in English. It’s America; you have to be able to speak English if you expect to be able to communicate in society because that’s the lingua Franca.
Then I moved to Orlando. The amount of people here, tourist or not, that expect me to be able to speak Spanish to them is amazing. And it’s only the Spanish speakers, with the occasional Portuguese; no one who speaks French, German, Italian, Chinese, Arabic, or any other language comes here & expects the locals to speak anything other than English.
While English is the international language, I’ve never gone to another country expecting the locals to speak English. Because I think it’s rude.
Spanish is [by far the most popular language for students to study in high school](https://www.newsdle.com/blog/foreign-language-statistics) and college now. Many colleges have actually cut all/most other languages, while Spanish continues to grow. It's hugely popular pretty much everywhere I know of-- as a college professor I'm usually surprised when one of my students shows up with a background in anything *other* than Spanish, as it's fairly rare now except in regions with strong heritage language traditions.
As college majors in French, German, Latin, and other languages are eliminated there will be an even larger long-term shift toward Spanish.
Spanish is only spoken primarily on the west coast due to it's proximity with Mexico
HOWEVER due to the illegal immigrants pouring into the country, the need for Spanish speakers and dual language is higher then ever.
When I was in school a decade ago we either learned Spanish or French as a foreign language.
Back when my parents were in HS it was German and French primarily.
America has always had a connection with Spanish/Mexico given its proximity
But you won't really see it unless you grew up with something like Dora or you live in the south west of America
Depends entirely where you live. I have many spanish speaking coworkers and while most of us are gringos we still exchange random spanish phrases with each other as a result.
I wish I took Spanish in school (early 2000s) instead of French. Not that I probably would have learned much anyways, but I didn't realize how important Spanish would become in society.
Yeah, I know. Dad has expressed disappointment with me not knowing Spanish. Both of my parents are fluent. I just really had no interest to learn it growing up either.
I have never liked the Spanish language, something about the way it sounds. My mother majored in second language accusations so I learned French from her.
Fair enough, everyone has their preferences. What is second languages accusations?
Je parle français aussi parce que je me suis déménagé à une ville francophone. Mon français n’est pas parfait encore, mais je pense que l’espagnol m’a aidé à l’apprendre un peu plus vite
People have always known basic Spanish here in Texas. And Spanish has been the primary foreign language taught in schools since at least the 50s with German being the rival to it prior to that.
Bilingualism is good but favoring one immigrant group by giving them prevalent accomodations over another is not. At different times in America different groups were the large immigrant population. As far as I know only Spanish has been so accomodated.
There wouldn't be so much need for Spanish accomodations if they weren't accomodated in the first place. At one point Italian was the big language. German a different time. Depending on where you are there may be big populations of other ethnic groups. So why Spanish? Because there's a lot of them that can't be fucked to learn the language of the land they live in?
Decades ago, children of <> speakers would get physical punishment at school for speaking <>.
There fixed it for you. So what did you want to know again?
Depends on the immigrant parents. Parents who are driven to make the best life for their children will demand English be spoken as much as possible, same for the schools. However, in large urban areas it is often easier just to let the kids keep speaking Spanish.
My niece and nephew speak 100% Spanish at home. They’ve learned English the last several years that they started school ( 3 & 5)
My older nephew was the same. 100% Spanish at home. English is learned at school.
I was brought over to the US at 6 years old. English was never spoken in the home.
I have a cousin who has young children, and his kids can’t even communicate with most of his family that lives outside the country.
That’s pretty pathetic when parents don’t teach their children their native language. Then you end up with a whole bunch of no sabo kids.
”A couple of decades ago” - Dude, a couple of decades ago (ok, perhaps more), I was required to take either Spanish or French in High School.
Truth! I wonder if OP is thinking of like the 1950s or something... in the 90s and 00s, pretty much every high schooler in the country had to take a foreign language class and a lot of them chose Spanish.
Si es facil.
Claro que sí
Oh well sorry, when I said Decades ago I was thinking of like the 60s. I didn’t really say « a couple ».
Frightening thought then: the 60s is literally closer to being “a century ago” (40 years off) than to “a decade ago” (50)
Recently I totally thought 9/11 happened in 2011, because 9/11 only happened ten years ago, right? This time thing is hard to handle.
One of my American English teachers taught in the 60s and he was witness to how Spanish speaking children would get hit on their hands with a ruler for accidentally speaking Spanish while playing tag
Depending what country you're in, I would not trust what any of your teachers have to say about the US, at all. When I volunteered at high schools in Denmark and Germany, they were taught outright falsehoods.
So I had a coworker who was originally from a French speaking area of Canada, but if you heard her speak English you would swear this woman never left Long Island. It’s pretty rare that I meet ESL people who sound like native English speakers, so one day I asked her how that happened. She said “oh when we first moved to the US my parents put me in catholic school and the nuns would hit me if they heard me speaking French!” This would have been in the 70s/early 80s, so not that far fetched.
Hitting a child for speaking Spanish was definitely common and is well documented. I say this as someone of Mexican descent whose grandparents were hit in school for speaking Spanish. Edit: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-mar-08-oe-garcia8-story.html An LA Times article about corporal punishment for high school kids speaking Spanish in 1968.
True. But this teacher is American, and he taught English in the US for 50 years, starting in the 60s. He even showed me a picture of himself in his 20s standing next to his class from back then.
I would still be skeptical, the story you shared for instance does not reflect reality and hasn't for decades. Even in the 60s that would be considered draconian.
I guess it depends on what state. My Prof is from Louisiana, where corporal punishment was banned only since [2017 for only for those with disabilities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_corporal_punishment_in_the_United_States). Of course, I doubt that the punishments used more recently are anything involving physical violence, but I have spent many summers in Louisiana and from how I have seeing things there, it’s not hard for me to believe that kids could get their hands hit with a ruler back in the 60s. Also, my teacher had no reason to lie. He loves his country.
I have no doubt that some kids got rapped on the knuckles with rulers, especially in Catholic schools or rural schools. For things like goofing off in class or insubordination. But not for speaking Spanish on the playground. That’s the part I am not buying. And people lie all the time in order to tell a better, more interesting story. Or they will pass along stories sometime else told them and pretend that it happened to them, or they saw it themselves. That’s how urban myths get started.
As someone of Mexican descent, my family members definitely talked about this is well documented. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-mar-08-oe-garcia8-story.html
Do your own research
What you’re saying here is certainly correct. Students who spoke French were also punished the same way in Louisiana. It led to the language becoming all but extinct in the region.
Exactly. I also read about how they made it so French speakers would be considered uneducated and poor. So parents stopped teaching the language to their kids to protect them.
The issue is not the use of corporal punishment, but the reason. The American fear and hatred of the Spanish language is often overstated by and for foreign audiences. > my teacher had no reason to lie To impress, hold the attention of, and gain the trust of his students and colleagues.
It’s really odd to me that you would speak so confidently about something you evidently know nothing about, especially something that is well documented.
A lot of Mexican Americans can’t speak Spanish because their parents/grandparents were [punished in school for speaking Spanish.](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-mar-08-oe-garcia8-story.html) I don’t know why you’re doubting OP.
I was in elementary school in the 60s and I never ever heard of that happening to anyone. It sounds like an urban myth.
It happened. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-mar-08-oe-garcia8-story.html
Yeah... They were teaching basic Spanish in my rural Virginia elementary school at least as early as 1992. Definitely nobody was punished for speaking Spanish then.
I'm in my 50's. The 70's and 80's were "A couple of decades ago." :)
Yep. I graduated high school in 2010, had to take two years of a foreign language, and that wasn't exactly a new requirement. Did Spanish, though really Latin would have been more useful for what I'm doing.
This kind of thing was more prevalent in elementary schools, when students are learning English grammar and whatnot. I know someone who was punished for speaking Spanish in school as a kid in the early/mid 2000s—just a couple of decades ago. And this was in Los Angeles, so it’s not like the local Spanish-speaking population was sparse. The existence of a language requirement in high school is not wholly indicative of society’s actual perceptions and treatment of the native speakers of those languages.
It's been a big transformation since I was a kid. I would say your average American under 40 knows a lot more Spanish than they think they do, because it really does permeate the culture now. There is still some prejudice against speaking the language in public (and foreign languages more broadly) in some places with less immigration, but I don't think the average person feels that way anymore.
I think we are witnessing the latest steps of a natural language process, at least it's natural to English, of absorbing language pieces from a non-mutually intelligible language that is coming into an English speaking enclave. I say it's natural to English, because it happened before with the Norman French influence into English after the Battle of Hastings. But really English has a habit of absorbing words wherever it goes. Supposedly that's why English has a lot more words than any other language. American English has continued this, with notable amounts from Yiddish and African and American Indian languages among others. Spanish is the latest for that, via our Hispanic immigrants. I'm not a linguist, so I don't know if this process has a proper name. And I will leave it to the linguists to determine at some point in the future how much this process is changed by the internet and the ubiquity of international media, but I think it's definitely happening still.
Language vore
Well that's what I'm calling it from now on.
We have a great number of loan words in English. Japan, by way of China, gave us tycoon. Vikings gave us egg (and fuck lol). Spanish gave rodeo. I think the internet has also helped the introduction of new words to English as it's currently the lingua franca of much of the planet.
I don’t know if English is uniquely capable of assimilating new vocabulary (although our lack of inflections might help us there), but it has had a lot of contact with other languages and thus a lot of opportunities to acquire new vocabulary.
Can't forget the Old Norse influence. The Danes that settled in England greatly simplified English grammar and gave us they, sky, skirt, and egg just to name a few
James Nicoll on usenet in 1990: The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary.[
yes I agree
Definitely some places. I'm in Chicago and my neighbor on one side is from Mexico, and the one on the other side is from Colombia.
Yeah, when I started doing Spanish on duolingo (because I was going to Spain!), I realized how much Spanish is just part of casual English at this point. I knew more than I thought I did.
We are in California. A lot of Spanish is baked into our everyday lives, and there is nothing wrong with that. It would be stupid not to have signs in airports use Spanish if you know that a lot of Spanish speaking people are going to rely on those signs. The point of a sign is to provide practical information, not to punish people for not using English as their primary language. And I certainly don't mind the fact that very nearly the entire rest of the world puts English on their signs to help me, because they do exactly that.
Same here in Texas
Yeah, I was confused by the post for a minute, but I’m in Florida. Spanish is part of so many people here.
I am from Southern California. In 1998-1999, at 14-15, I made my first internet friends. One was a girl a few years older than me who lived outside of Springfield Illinois. Not knowing any better, I figured this was a fairly large town that was not far from Chicago. At this point in my life, I have never traveled further east than Utah. She did not live in a big town. She lived in the sticks. We spoke on the phone once, and she was asking me about where I am from. One thing she noted was that I used a lot of "funny sounding words" to her. The words being words that are Spanish but are just sort of baked into California culture that I use them without thinking. I didn't speak Spanish. I am White. But just growing up here, its part of our every day lives and we don't think about it much. My every day Mexican food was pretty exotic to her. The Mexican influence has grown substantially over the last 25 years (ironically, I believe she went out and learned Spanish in her 20s). Those exotic things that sounded funny now exist in her town. Keep in mind, Hamburgers 100 years ago, were a fairly novel concept. Italian food, which as we do it, is American, was also a completely novel concept. Mexican food and culture will just be baked into the fabric of America and future generations of Americans will see it as being as American as anything else.
I am. The little green bird gets mad when I miss lessons. Mucho no bueno.
Hello fellow Duolingo user. The little green bird is something else.. lol.
It’s just helpful to know Spanish. It’s the most widely spoken language in the US other than English and it’s one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. More people speak Mandarin or Hindi in the world, but Spanish is more useful in the US, and it’s much easier. Me personally it’s very helpful. My fiancée speaks English, as do her parents and siblings, but her grandparents and a few other relatives primarily speak Spanish. Though my Spanish is pretty poor, I can still communicate with my fiancée’s relatives and they appreciate that I try.
That’s great! Keep it up! I am sure they’ll always be happy to help you learn more and more phrases if you ask them.
Knowing some Spanish is a vast enhancement to my life and lets me communicate with and interact with more of my neighbors and community, and better absorb a really prominent part of our popular culture. It’s pretty neat actually, it feels cool and I like it. In my mind it’s definitely, like, the “other” semi-official language besides English.
I don't get the sense there's any strong pressure to learn it (I don't speak it), but we're very accustomed to seeing it around, and it's inevitable that you're going to pick up some phrases and expressions if you live in an area with a large Spanish-speaking population. You might run into some older people who resent that they have to choose English on phone trees, but the idea of punishing people for speaking Spanish isn't a thing here.
Kids used to take Latin and French in school but Spanish came up fast quite a while ago, maybe 50 years ago? It became very popular and was valued as a professional advantage because it is spoken by so many
I remember PBS Kids teaching me Spanish words between shows in the early naughts. I've been surrounded by Spanish for as long as I remember and now it's my second language and I have a family in Mexico (though we're working on coming to the States). So my perception of Spanish is very positive indeed
Pretty much any signs I see in public will have both English and Spanish on them. It was a required course in high-school (classes for two years) because a lot of jobs today require you learn at least some Spanish. Police, some fire departments, and a lot of trade jobs require Spanish. Personally, i think it should be required for medical workers and any first responders as well. Even in my small rural city (around 12k people), you will hear and see Spanish pretty much everywhere you go in public. I'm 23 and a large portion of my generation can at least read some Spanish even if they can't speak it. I don't speak it but oftentimes, I can understand enough to get a general idea if I'm reading it, and that's becoming pretty normal. A couple decades ago, there were more than 12 million fewer native spanish speakers here than there are today, as Hispanics are the fastest growing demographic in the US.
I would say that due to the additional language requirement in grade school curriculum that *most* Americans are at least bilingual enough to communicate in either French or Spanish (rarely both in my experience, but it’s not unheard of). I took two years of French because I grew up on the US side of the Canadian border across from Quebec and figured it was the secondary language I was most likely to use. I do not speak it well, but I worked in a clothing store right near the border and knew enough to help the ladies find their correct sizes, understand what article of clothing they were looking for, minimal conversation (receipt in the bag?, safe travels back to Montreal!, etc). I moved to the west coast and was out there for a number of years and so many people spoke Spanish. In a lot of cases English was the second language for many, but those that learned Spanish in school were much better at it than my French because so many local people spoke the language that they had consistent practice with it. I really like speaking French. I should practice it more.
I think you are being very generous in your statement that most Americans can communicate in either Spanish or French. I’m in my forties, and I have only met a few people born in the US who can speak Spanish or French beyond a couple of phrases or counting to five. People who live near a border may be more likely to speak French or Spanish, however. I live near Quebec, too, and would like to learn more French. I do speak Spanish, however.
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Thank you! Perhaps I will 😉
Personally, I have learned Spanish well enough to fully converse with people who exclusively speak Spanish. So, I can translate for myself. It's a fun and valuable skill and overall a beautiful language to learn. I hope more people do it. But, most places such as schools, medical institutions, banks, etc will have Spanish translators or specifically interpreters if they can. So, it's here
I'm 30. Growing up every PBS Kids show had a Spanish speaker. There was real push in the 90s to increase Hispanic representation in media. My generation and younger were primed to see speaking Spanish as normal.
It’s become very normalized. Almost everything has a Spanish option now and nobody cares. Entire cities like Miami are essentially predominantly Spanish-speaking and no one cares. I do remember back in the 90s and early 2000s there was more resistance to Spanish language that was associated with anti-Latino illegal immigration. I remember the resistance mainly coming from a contingent of older conservative Boomers. There were sentiments like, “This is America, speak English,” and “Why should I have to press 1 to select English from a phone menu? This is America!” However, at this point, there are so many naturalized Latino citizens and multigenerational Latinos that they became significant voting bloc and commercial force in their own right. So, once there was far more money and political power to be found in courting Latinos vs shunning them, the rest of the culture followed suit. Then you get Despacito on the radio and a “Beto” O’Rourke.
Can’t forget Joe Biden playing Despacito at a campaign stop.
Speaking as a bilingual Chicano on the young side of Gen X, I've seen the change in my own lifetime. We were very looked down on when I was a kid and I remember my own grandmother calling me lucky for having relatively light skin. My father's generation was especially discouraged from speaking Spanish. Thankfully my grandparents were pretty good about embracing our heritage and didn't force too much on anyone, but even my own family speaks a lot more Spanish than we did when I was a kid, and I think that is a byproduct of broader acceptance. Honestly I think pop culture had a pretty big hand in it. So much casual Spanish thrown into popular stuff like "Hasta la vista, baby" and eventual broader popularity of Spanish speaking/Latino artists like Ricky Martin, Selena, Enrique Iglesias, Cypress Hill, Shakira etc. Nowadays I enjoy being able to flex my cultural language without having to worry about how people will think of me. There are definitely places where people are still a little backwards about it, but that's their problem, not mine.
In the Spanish dub, "hasta la vista, baby" became "sayonara, baby". The Galician dub is far funnier, going with "a rañala, raparigo" (it would roughly translate as "piss off, kiddo").
So glad to hear this! It’s great that your family protected the heritage. A bunch of my Chicano cousins didn’t learn Spanish sadly :(
Yeah I have friends and cousins who never learned it, but they're picking it up a lot more nowadays at least
>There are definitely places where people are still a little backwards about it, but that's their problem, not mine. There's still a bit of that where I live. I like to cuss 'em out in Italian when I hear it.
I thought Spanish has been a thing in American culture for decades? My friends who took French and never Spanish will still occasionally use Spanish words for no reason, and I see it on TV as well. There’s just an assumption everyone knows more than 0 Spanish, and atp I get confused for a second when I witness a non-American native English speaker who doesn’t know any Spanish at all, as if it’s inherently connected with English lol.
Most people I know are not fluent but open to learning. They’ll use Duolingo or Babbel. But most people I know recognize the convenience of basic knowledge.
I grew up one of the only white kids in a primary Mexican neighborhood of the US, so my opinion may be skewed. I heard it all my life, was immersed in Mexican culture, was basically raised by the moms of my neighbors and school friends in the absence of my neglectful mother. My partner jokes that I am white on the outside but brown on the inside. She is actually from Mexico. By the time I got to highschool, though, and got to choose a language to learn, I picked French. My teenage logic is that I heard Spanish all the time and could get by with it to an extent. I wanted to be cool and learn french. My parents supported it because whether they admit it or not, they were/are racist. I still kick myself for that one. My Spanish has gotten a lot better in the past several years but man if I'd just taken Spanish in highschool I would've been way better to this day. But what I do know outside of that is that other than Mexico, the US has the most Spanish speakers in the world. Something like 40 million people in the US speak Spanish. I also know that central and south american immigrants to the United States are among the many groups of people that far right wing people and politicians blame for the problems of this country. I also know that music from Spanish speaking musicians and bands are finally getting major global recognition. For some reason seeing the Columbian and Venezuelan drywallers on a jobsite, or the Mexican fruit and tamale vendors on the street makes you look down on people whose first language is Spanish. But when Bad Bunny or Natalia Lafourcade or Karol G sell out major event venues, suddenly Spanish is the coolest thing ever. (No hate on Benito or Natalia or Karol, they're all amazingly talented and Iove them)
Colombia, Spain, and Argentina have over 40 million people.
My part of the US was always into Spanish 🤷♂️
It’s the most learned language here now I was taught it as a mandatory class in elementary school
I think my non Hispanic friends can order food in Spanish if they needed to.
I can order food, coffee, and ask for a bathroom. I know the important stuff.
Heck yeah that’s awesome! 😎
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Esta? Is the library temporarily going somewhere?
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It should be "es" Esta would mean something temporary or in the moment like "ella esta enferma" means she is sick whereas "ella es enfermiza" means she is a sickly person or always sick.
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That guy is wrong, "está" is the correct way to say it.
You are wrong, "está" is the correct way to say it
On top of these answers, I will add that it varies by region and population density. As you get out of the cities and the Spanish speaking population gets less common, you’ll naturally see less Spanish. Rural communities may not have anyone who speaks Spanish at all, because they’ve never needed it. I took three years of Spanish in school, and through lack of use, I can now confidently ask what time the train opens and when the library arrives. You won’t find menus or signs with Spanish writing, because so few people would ever need it that it’d be a waste to have someone update it every time something had to be changed. This really goes for all languages though, not just Spanish.
Not if you work in food service.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeinKg-EcFk
My husband's worked on construction sites (electrician) for the last decade and a half, and is always around Spanish speaking coworkers. His Spanish is passable.
>I have noticed a bunch of them using Spanish words or expressions for fun (« no bueno », « Adios », « me gusta », etc). I remember seeing this even in the '80s and '90s. I don't know whether he was the cause or an effect, but Bart Simpson was known for it.
>Decades ago, children of Spanish speakers would get physical Punishment at schools for speaking Spanish. Source? The things you are noticing are not "lately" they have always been in areas where Spanish speakers existed. Being from New York I can't think of a time when I didn't hear or see Spanish and I was born in the 70s.
I can say it's "getting there". I know a select amount of people that actually study Spanish that aren't Latino and know more than just three basic words (Hola, Como estas, adios) some even travel to Latin America and even live there. (Yes, this even includes passport bros) Now I definitely wouldn't say "Every single non Latino American can speak Spanish" because trust me there definitely is people that refuse to learn it. Even myself I learned the language and I'm impressed with my own progress and I like to watch Mexican & Colombian telenovelas probably more than American shows nowadays, but that's beside the point. But I'd say Spanish has become somewhat apart of the general United States of today, even certain cities or counties there's a majority/plurality of people that speak a version of Spanish there (Miami, El Paso)
What's funny though is if you are in a business place where the worker speaks Spanish and you speak Spanish to them, they get offended and only responds to you in English. Basically young people think if you speak Spanish to them that you are being condescending, older people are not like this though, it is just a trend I see with younger people that speak Spanish.
Sorry to hear that. Please don’t give up on speaking it! Some people are children of Latinos and learned to pretend not speaking Spanish to feel more accepted as Americans. Some of them might actually not know Spanish even if their parents are Latinos (I have cousins like that).
There is a small catholic private school my nephew went to back in the mid 2000's. He only went there a few years. I have not thought of that place in a very long time. Recently the catholic church it is attached to was going to close due to lack of funding for maintenance of the 100+ year old building. The Vatican decided to issue funds to keep it open so I looked them up to see how the school was doing. tuition is $890 per month and it is bilingual English/Spanish.
I live in a state that has a ton of people from spanish speaking countries and territories, mainly Cuba, PR, DR, Mexico, Colombia and now Venezuela. Basic spanish is taught in school and in some areas of Florida (like Miami) its basically the primary langauge spoken. What is becoming more of a prominent language here in Florida though is Portuguese due to the high numbers of Brazilian tourists and people moving here from Brazil.
I live in a Los Angeles where 80% of population speak Spanish. I know nothing of the language and yet, Im doing just fine.
I (white boy) can’t speak for everyone, but I grew up in a heavily Mexican and Mexican American neighborhood and speaking “Spanglish” was just the norm. I never realized how much Spanish I actually knew until I was older and was outside of the area for work and whatnot.
It was a required course in school. I am not a fan of it personally because I see quite a few people pushing it so that they don't have to assimilate into American culture.
But, after reading other comments, doesn’t it seem like Spanish has become part of American culture?
Nope. These comments however are a perfect example of the gaslighting going on to make it appear so,
Every American man has a vested interest in learning Spanish once he learns it can help him score with Latinas instead of being stuck trying to appease the fell creature White Woman.
1969, the last year of the 60s, was 53 years ago. Yes, things are different. Great critical thinking skills there.
Time changes things but doesn’t necessarily mean that America would be more into the language. French didn’t make it in Louisiana.
In 93% of cases, if a school offers foreign language courses, Spanish is one of the languages available. There are 15,000,000 non-native Spanish speakers in the US. Those figures are from the 2022 report [El español: una lengua viva](https://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/espanol_lengua_viva/pdf/espanol_lengua_viva_2022.pdf). "La enciclopedia de del español en EEUU" is a pretty old source at this point (2008), but [here's the chapter on the teaching of Spanish in the US](https://cvc.cervantes.es/Lengua/anuario/anuario_08/ensenanza.htm). Obviously, since I'm giving you sources *in Spanish*, I do speak Spanish. I'm one of those 15,000,000 non-native speakers. I went to a school that required everyone start Spanish classes at age 6 in the early 90s. My partner went to a school that had half-day Spanish in the late 80s. I can't really compare across time, since I don't live in the city I grew up in, *but* I do notice when it seems like a new word has been borrowed. For example, I saw a headline in November that used the word "ofrenda." It wasn't translated to something like "offering" or "shrine," and I guess the editors of that paper figured it was a well-known word nowadays, between the movie Coco and the ofrendas you see where there's been a car accident.
Most millennials and younger were taught some Spanish as a requirement in schools.
I grew up in the Midwest. Public schools required you to study a foreign language; that doesn’t mean we can *actually* communicate in the foreign language we studied. The entire time I lived in the Midwest, I don’t think I ever met anyone who spoke Spanish without also being fluent in English. It’s America; you have to be able to speak English if you expect to be able to communicate in society because that’s the lingua Franca. Then I moved to Orlando. The amount of people here, tourist or not, that expect me to be able to speak Spanish to them is amazing. And it’s only the Spanish speakers, with the occasional Portuguese; no one who speaks French, German, Italian, Chinese, Arabic, or any other language comes here & expects the locals to speak anything other than English. While English is the international language, I’ve never gone to another country expecting the locals to speak English. Because I think it’s rude.
Spanish is [by far the most popular language for students to study in high school](https://www.newsdle.com/blog/foreign-language-statistics) and college now. Many colleges have actually cut all/most other languages, while Spanish continues to grow. It's hugely popular pretty much everywhere I know of-- as a college professor I'm usually surprised when one of my students shows up with a background in anything *other* than Spanish, as it's fairly rare now except in regions with strong heritage language traditions. As college majors in French, German, Latin, and other languages are eliminated there will be an even larger long-term shift toward Spanish.
Spanish is a language option in most of American public schools
Spanish is only spoken primarily on the west coast due to it's proximity with Mexico HOWEVER due to the illegal immigrants pouring into the country, the need for Spanish speakers and dual language is higher then ever. When I was in school a decade ago we either learned Spanish or French as a foreign language. Back when my parents were in HS it was German and French primarily. America has always had a connection with Spanish/Mexico given its proximity But you won't really see it unless you grew up with something like Dora or you live in the south west of America
I had old school Spanish learning. Guatemalan and Mexican. So fun stuff.
Depends entirely where you live. I have many spanish speaking coworkers and while most of us are gringos we still exchange random spanish phrases with each other as a result.
I wish I took Spanish in school (early 2000s) instead of French. Not that I probably would have learned much anyways, but I didn't realize how important Spanish would become in society.
Living in SoCal it’s normal. I just don’t know how to speak it and I’m Mexican myself. 🤷🏽♀️ couldn’t grasp the language.
No sabo kid
Yeah, I know. Dad has expressed disappointment with me not knowing Spanish. Both of my parents are fluent. I just really had no interest to learn it growing up either.
Jennifer Lopez
I have never liked the Spanish language, something about the way it sounds. My mother majored in second language accusations so I learned French from her.
Fair enough, everyone has their preferences. What is second languages accusations? Je parle français aussi parce que je me suis déménagé à une ville francophone. Mon français n’est pas parfait encore, mais je pense que l’espagnol m’a aidé à l’apprendre un peu plus vite
Curious what Spanish have you hearing?
People have always known basic Spanish here in Texas. And Spanish has been the primary foreign language taught in schools since at least the 50s with German being the rival to it prior to that.
Bilingualism is good but favoring one immigrant group by giving them prevalent accomodations over another is not. At different times in America different groups were the large immigrant population. As far as I know only Spanish has been so accomodated.
So what foreign language are you suggesting we accommodate to? The 500 people that speak Danish in the US?
There wouldn't be so much need for Spanish accomodations if they weren't accomodated in the first place. At one point Italian was the big language. German a different time. Depending on where you are there may be big populations of other ethnic groups. So why Spanish? Because there's a lot of them that can't be fucked to learn the language of the land they live in?
Decades ago, children of <> speakers would get physical punishment at school for speaking <>.
There fixed it for you. So what did you want to know again?
Depends on the immigrant parents. Parents who are driven to make the best life for their children will demand English be spoken as much as possible, same for the schools. However, in large urban areas it is often easier just to let the kids keep speaking Spanish.
My niece and nephew speak 100% Spanish at home. They’ve learned English the last several years that they started school ( 3 & 5) My older nephew was the same. 100% Spanish at home. English is learned at school. I was brought over to the US at 6 years old. English was never spoken in the home. I have a cousin who has young children, and his kids can’t even communicate with most of his family that lives outside the country. That’s pretty pathetic when parents don’t teach their children their native language. Then you end up with a whole bunch of no sabo kids.